Alternate Row Shading for Excel
Shade every other row of a workbook so long tables stay readable. Free, private, and applied in your browser.
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Supports .xlsx, .xls, .xlsm, .xlsb · up to 50MB · or paste a file from your clipboard
How to Shade Alternate Rows in Excel
- Add the workbook - Drop an .xlsx, .xls, .xlsm, or .xlsb file. It is read locally in your browser.
- Set the first data row - Rows above it - usually just the header - are left unshaded.
- Pick a colour and band size - Shade every other row, or in pairs for taller records.
- Download the banded workbook - The shading is a plain fill, so it survives copying and printing.
Why Not Just Format as Table?
Excel's usual answers both bring along behaviour you did not ask for. Format as Table gives you banding, but it also adds filter arrows, renames your range, and changes how formulas refer to it. A conditional-formatting rule with =MOD(ROW(),2)=0 keeps the workbook plainer, but the bands follow the row numbers rather than the data - sort the table and the stripes reshuffle themselves.
Writing a plain fill avoids both. The shading is just cell formatting: it copies, prints, and exports like any other fill, and nothing else about the workbook changes.
The Trade-off Worth Knowing
Because the bands are fixed fills rather than a live rule, they do not re-stripe when you later insert or delete a row. That is the cost of not having a rule attached. If you expect the table to keep changing shape, a conditional-formatting rule is the better fit; if the data is settled and you want it readable, this is simpler and more portable.